


Thirsting for More

by triggerswaggiehavoc



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Emotional Constipation, Humor, Jeonghan is a vampire...OR IS HE, Kissing, M/M, Mild Language, Romantic Comedy, Sexual Tension, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 17:09:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19407676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triggerswaggiehavoc/pseuds/triggerswaggiehavoc
Summary: Minghao will not let Jeonghan trick him. The era of pining after vampires has long since passed, and he refuses to be the one to bring it back into fashion.





	Thirsting for More

The moment Minghao feels a cold touch on the back of his hand, he’s already jumping away. Just as he thought. Jeonghan is standing there, a little too close behind where he just was, free hand dangling the exact spot Minghao just felt it. There’s a plastic cup in his other hand that he sips out of. Minghao doesn’t want to know what’s in it. Certainly can’t be anything good.

“So jumpy,” Jeonghan murmurs, eyes crinkled above the rim of his cup. “Scared?”

“Yeah, right.” Minghao looks at the cobwebs Soonyoung and Wonwoo hung up in their apartment out of the corner of his eye and frowns. The little plastic spiders strung up on them are mocking him. “Just terrified.”

“What, afraid I’ll suck your blood or something?” Jeonghan asks with a grin. Minghao’s face steels up on reflex.

It’s Halloween, sure. At least, it will be in a few days. Minghao decided to buy a Luigi costume this year, and he’ll admit he’s made more than a few jokes about being a plumber and winning shitty real estate contests, but there’s something different about when Jeonghan jokes the same way. His costume is the ever-nuanced vampire, and he’s made too many jokes about it. Everybody else may still be chuckling over them, but Minghao’s gut instincts refuse to let him. As stupid as he feels just thinking it, he’s about 90% sure Jeonghan is a real vampire.

“As if I’d let you,” he spits. Jeonghan only laughs and takes another sip of his drink.

Minghao isn’t really sure when he started thinking it. It was definitely long before Halloween, because by the time Jeonghan mentioned his idea for a costume, it was already cemented in his mind. It might have been sometime in the later part of the summer. He guesses it doesn’t really matter when anymore, just that he’s almost so sure of it he could shit himself. Not that that indicates sureness necessarily, but he definitely feels like he might shit himself right now.

“Is that a challenge?” Jeonghan says, eyes glittering a menacing sort of silver. He laughs again when Minghao doesn’t say anything, places his free hand on the back of Minghao’s neck for just a second. Good god, is it cold. Suspiciously cold. Pants-shittingly cold. “You’re cute,” Jeonghan says. “Relax a little bit.” Then he’s walking away with his shitty cold hands into another, louder room of the apartment, and Minghao is definitely not even a little bit red in the face.

He wishes he had someone to talk to about this, but he knows nobody would listen. He’s already tried. Soonyoung and Wonwoo couldn’t have taken him less seriously if they were getting paid for it.

“Have you been reading _Twilight_ again?” Wonwoo’d asked without looking up from his phone. The chirpy little dings from whatever game he was playing smacked Minghao right where he always felt his headaches coming on.

“I have not,” he said, folding his arms. “And there is so much evidence on my side that everyone is just, like, conveniently ignoring.”

“Like what, my little dumpling?” Soonyoung crooned from his position lying supine on the couch, magazine draped over his nose. “What’s the evidence?”

“I know you’re already ready to not believe me,” Minghao sighed, “but listen. Have you ever seen him eat anything? I haven’t. And I’ve known him for like two years.” He paused, but neither Soonyoung nor Wonwoo took the opportunity to comment. Minghao didn’t really need them to, since he knew he was right, but he at least wanted to know they were listening. “And have you ever touched his hands? They’re freezing. Which is normal for some people, I guess, but I mean… they’re seriously cold. And who on earth is that pale? What living person is that pale, huh? Name one real person who is that pale and also alive.”

For a moment, it was silent. Then Soonyoung coughed. “What it sounds like to me,” he began, and Minghao could already tell he wasn’t listening to anything, “is that you’re just horny and projecting your weird fantasies onto Jeonghan because he happens to fit a few weird coincidences.”

“I already told you I’m not reading _Twilight_ ,” Minghao huffed. “I’m not projecting anything.”

“Whoa, Soonyoung, did you hear that?” Wonwoo said, finally chancing a look up from his screen. Beneath the magazine, Soonyoung turned his head as if he were going to meet Wonwoo’s eyes through thirty laminated sheets of paper. After a silent moment of non-eye contact, Wonwoo raised his eyebrows and turned to Minghao with a small, shitty grin. “A very blatant nondenial of being horny.”

“Oh, I did hear that,” Soonyoung hummed, muffled.

“Now you guys are just being stupid.”

“And he still doesn’t deny it,” Wonwoo said, returning his attention to the phone on his palm. “A truly deafening silence.”

“It really wouldn’t kill you to take me seriously.”

“We always take being horny seriously,” Soonyoung said, chuckling in a seedy way that made Minghao want to throw up or die or both.

“You’re just getting too into the Halloween spirit, Luigi,” Wonwoo told him, a little sigh escaping his lips just moments after the death noise jingled from his phone’s speakers. “Go watch a movie or something and you’ll forget all about it.”

Minghao had watched a movie after that, and he certainly hadn’t forgotten about anything. In fact, he only became even more sure about everything and even less confident in his friends as people. And right now, at this Halloween party, he is more sure than he ever has been in his entire life, and he can’t do anything about it but stand around and listen to Monster Mash and pretend he has the capacity to think about anything else.

He fits himself neatly into a corner where he’s sure nobody can sneak up behind him and casts his eyes out on the small crowd of people weaving by in front of him. Orange and purple lights catch on everyone’s heads as they walk by, glinting off silver designs laced on witch hats and dyeing streaks in hair. Determined as he is to remain vigilant, Minghao can’t help but get a little bored standing there waiting for something to happen. The music is loud, but he’s been losing so much sleep lately that it’s hard to keep his eyes open. Leaning into the wall, he can feel his blinks getting longer, but he’s powerless to stop them.

Breath on his neck is what rouses him from dozing, just warm enough to spike him in the spine with ice. He glances around, frantic. Everything looks exactly the same as it had moments ago before he closed his eyes, but now his face hurts from where it was pressed against the wall. And that ghastly breath at his neck. Turning to his left, he sees Jeonghan, standing way too close again. Surprise, surprise.

“Enjoy your little nap?” he asks, and his words still brush over Minghao’s skin in a very dangerous way. Minghao wonders whether his unfamiliarity with the concept of personal space has anything to do with being a vampire.

“Can I help you with something?” Minghao coughs. He hates the condescending way Jeonghan’s eyes crinkle in laughter.

“No need to be so snippy.”

“Oh, I think there’s a need,” Minghao scoffs. “There a good reason you’re breathing down my neck like a creepy weirdo?”

“Just wanted to play a little prank,” Jeonghan says, and now he leans back. Minghao’s entire body decompresses instantly, but Jeonghan is still near enough that he tenses right back up.

“What’s the prank?” Minghao asks. “Murder?” For a moment, Jeonghan doesn’t respond. As far as Minghao is concerned, this is nothing but rock hard evidence for his case. “Yeah, that’s a really good one.”

Jeonghan looks at him for another few seconds, expression blank, which Minghao is also counting as unshatterable proof until he says, “Are you okay?”

Now, though Minghao still feels right, he also feels very stupid. Just stupid enough that he’s not sure which way to move when Jeonghan leans toward him again, so he ends up not moving anywhere. Inches away, Jeonghan stares at him hard. His eyes are a really nice caramel color, Minghao’s always thought, and he’s thinking it again, and god does he not want to shit himself.

“What?”

“Do you want to know what the prank was?” Jeonghan asks, voice soft, lingering below the level of the music enough that Minghao has to move closer to hear. He doesn’t really want to know, but his skin is burning all over.

“Yeah, sure,” he grunts. He hopes it’s dark enough that his face doesn’t look bright red, or that the string lights are hitting him hard enough that it’s impossible to tell. Ideally, he would want Jeonghan just not to be looking at him, not to be here at all, yet here he is. “Whatever.”

Ever so slowly, Jeonghan brings his head closer, until he’s hovering beside Minghao’s neck again. Slow motion. The fight or flight mechanism in Minghao’s brain is screaming at him to do either or maybe even both, but he just stands there, numb, hands gripping each other tight enough to shatter his knuckles. Like a strip of film laid shot by shot, Minghao watches Jeonghan move forward, watches those lips fall on the side of his own neck, watches them stay. He feels it like he imagines a bullet made of magma might feel sinking straight into him, melting through his whole body. Briefly, he thinks he feels Jeonghan’s tongue sweep between his lips, and it makes him shiver.

There’s something like a sting when Jeonghan leans back, still moving slower than slow can be. Instinctively, Minghao reaches to cover the spot on his neck, because he’s just remembered that the neck is the location of a very major blood vessel. He doesn’t feel anything like a wound or blood, but his hands keep shaking, and he’s sure he’s red as a beet everywhere he can be. Jeonghan smiles a very small smile, one that says he knows what he’s doing, says this is a game and he’s just drawn the winning card. Minghao breathes out through his clenched teeth.

“That,” he says, throat alight with flame, “was not a prank.”

“Well, maybe,” Jeonghan allows, taking two steps back. There’s a vacuum between them now, gaping, filled with icy space and neon green cobwebs. So help him god, Minghao refuses to try bridging it. “But that’s what I was gonna do.”

Without saying anything else, he cracks a thin smile and turns to head down the hall. Minghao needs to say something, something to wipe that smug look off his face, but nothing comes. He stands there, silent and altogether way too warm, hand pressed over the spot on his neck that still tingles faintly, and watches Jeonghan’s back wash away in the orange lights.

The next three weeks, Minghao keeps a careful watch over his neck. When he wakes up each morning, he checks in the mirror, runs his fingers over the spot where the distinct memory of Jeonghan’s mouth still haunts him when he isn’t being cautious. There’s no mark there, nothing like teeth, like a bite, but Minghao’s not experienced with the way vampire bites manifest, so he’s not taking any chances. Not that he knows what to do if one does show up, but it just makes him feel better to be sure nothing’s there. Every night before he goes to bed, he checks again, but the stress still keeps him up late.

He also starts wearing more scarves, and he’s very thankful that the weather’s getting colder so he can get away with it. Some days, though, it’s still a little too warm for a scarf, but he toughs it out. After all, you never know when Jeonghan is going to show up.

“Why the hell do you have a scarf on?”

The voice comes from a few feet behind him, and Minghao recognizes it before he even looks. His grip tightens on the box of crackers in his hand as he turns around to come face to face with Jeonghan, smiling smug from behind a miniature cart that’s halfway filled with items. There’s something charming about the pink shining in his cheeks, but Minghao doesn’t let himself think about it. Just looking at Jeonghan makes his neck burn in that spot again, and he wishes he could vault himself over these shelves and straight through the roof of the building.

“Yeah, I bet you’d like to know,” he spits, tossing the crackers into his own basket and making his way further down the aisle. Jeonghan wheels along patiently behind him, like they arranged to meet up all along and he’s glad to have finally found Minghao. “Hey, don’t follow me.”

“Wow, so defensive.” His cart’s wheels squeak quietly against the floor as they roll. “I’m just curious since it’s, you know, almost sixty degrees out.”

“You never know when you’re going to need one,” Minghao mumbles, taking an abrupt turn down the next aisle. He hopes the sudden change will throw Jeonghan off enough that he can lose him, but no dice. Jeonghan follows right along like he knew Minghao would head this way the whole time. Must be those vampire instincts.

“You do know, actually,” Jeonghan says, pausing to check on the price of something as they pass by. It annoys Minghao that he reflexively stops with him, and also that he doesn’t start walking again when he realizes what he’s done. “You know you’re going to need one when it’s cold. And it’s not that cold.”

“What, so you’re suggesting I take it off?”

“I mean, I guess.”

“I bet you’d like that, huh?”

Jeonghan grins, a tiny and bemused little thing, and raises his eyebrows. Once again, Minghao feels very stupid under the way Jeonghan’s eyes are looking at him, but he holds his ground and withstands soiling himself. After a moment of silence, Jeonghan takes a few bold steps forward, until his cart is bumping against Minghao’s knees.

“What are you insinuating about me?” he asks, voice dark. Suddenly, Minghao is very much cold enough to need the scarf.

“I think you know,” he barely manages to whisper, lungs hugging each other inside his chest.

Jeonghan looks at him a while, eyes drifting in circles around his face, looking for something. There’s a light glowing in them that makes Minghao forget how to walk. “Well,” he says finally, “maybe you’re right.”

“I am?” Minghao asks, so shocked he forgets to be on guard and lets the wave of self-satisfaction take over. “Oh, I knew it!” He is absolutely going to obliterate Soonyoung and Wonwoo when he tells them later, and then they’ll feel bad for calling him horny. At least, he wishes they would, but he knows they absolutely won’t.

He’s yanked from that train of thought when Jeonghan laughs, nice and loud, leaning heavy into the cart and pushing it harder into Minghao’s legs as a consequence. “So when do you want to come over?”

“Huh?” Minghao blinks at Jeonghan, but nothing about him changes in those short intervals. Dumbstruck, he stands there, palms growing sweaty. “What do you mean, come over?”

“For dinner or something.”

“Dinner?”

In a moment, Minghao’s chest is cold. He hadn’t thought past finding out the truth, hadn’t even dreamed that Jeonghan might want to kill him to keep others from finding out about it. After all, they’d been friends up to this point. Right? Or maybe Jeonghan was just pretending so he would seem less suspicious. That spot on Minghao’s neck starts burning again, and he shivers.

“You’re going to eat me?” he whispers, taking a shaky step back. Jeonghan raises his eyebrows.

“I was thinking more like spaghetti,” he says, a grin blooming slow on his lips, “but if you’re offering.”

Minghao’s jaw hangs open, and he feels the color drain from his face. There’s something very scary about the way Jeonghan can stand there, grinning, leaned over the handle of his cart, and threaten something like that. Minghao wants to run, but Jeonghan’s eyes are holding him right where he is. Vampire magic, maybe? Minghao doesn’t know, but he does feel like he might shit himself. After a minute, Jeonghan’s grin withers, and he takes a step forward to make up for the meager distance Minghao put between them.

“So that’s a no to dinner, I guess,” he says. “What would you rather do, then? Movie?”

“You’re going to kill me in a movie theater?”

This time, Jeonghan laughs, lips sputtering like he’s been trying hard to hold it in and the dam has finally burst. Somehow, it washes the tension out of Minghao’s body, though he knows in his rational brain that being laughed at right now should do the opposite. Against his better judgement, he smiles a bit, but he clips it off as soon as he notices Jeonghan looking at him again.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jeonghan manages after a while, a little breathless, shoulders shaking. There’s the tiniest hint of warmth to his cheeks that Minghao tries to resist feeling something about.

“What are _you_ talking about?” Minghao challenges, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I’m talking about you’re right that I have a thing for you,” Jeonghan tells him, blunt, and a fevered blush wraps itself around Minghao’s entire body in an instant. “So let’s do something about it.”

Throat dry, Minghao can’t find it in him to do anything but stand perfectly still. So Jeonghan wasn’t confessing to being a vampire. He should’ve known, he guesses, since that’s not something anyone would just give up so easily, but he feels so deeply defeated in ways he can’t even comprehend. Rather, he feels defeated in a mix of other things, defeat muddled so badly with something else it’s hard to detect in the midst. He’s just on the brink of figuring out what that other thing is when he hears his own voice.

“Okay,” it says, and he hates the sound of it. It’s so stupidly shaky. “We can do dinner.” Jeonghan grins, and in the violent burning sensation that swallows Minghao’s entire body, he senses that the end must be near.

Unsurprisingly, neither Soonyoung nor Wonwoo takes Minghao’s plea to stake out Jeonghan’s house during their date seriously. “You just want us to watch you get laid,” Wonwoo had sighed, “which is none of our business, so you just go have fun.” Barring the obvious problems Minghao has with the accusation, there’s no way he’s going to have fun, judging solely by the way his hands shake in his pockets as he walks up the steps to Jeonghan’s door. It is either nerves or fear or both, and he is desperate for it to be just fear. Lusting after vampires fell out of fashion ten years ago.

Jeonghan is smiling when he opens the door, cream-colored sweater hanging loose around his neck. The light hue of it only accentuates his terrifying pallor. “Evening,” he says. “Come on in.”

Minghao shuffles in, feet close together on the little welcome mat. He’s been here before, but this time is different since Jeonghan’s roommates are gone (as Jeonghan assured him they would be), since Minghao’s vampire theory is in full swing, since it’s freezing outside and boiling inside. The warmth might also be due to his heart working itself into overdrive, but Minghao isn’t being too picky about the details. It smells good, at least. He shrugs his coat off.

“I have a lasagna in the oven,” Jeonghan offers, leaned back against the door jamb. He watches Minghao a little while, eyes glimmering. “Keeping the scarf on inside?”

“That’s my business,” Minghao huffs, breathless. He would give anything for his stomach to sit in one place for more than ten seconds.

“I guess it is,” Jeonghan says, “but I get cold easy, so I keep the heat up high.” He blinks so slowly, like he’s rolling the earth around in his head every time he closes his eyes. “You’re probably gonna be hot.”

“If I get hot,” Minghao tells him, scarf already starting to feel itchy around his neck, “it’s my problem.”

Jeonghan grins. Like that’s exactly what he thought Minghao would say.

“Suit yourself.”

They settle on the couch to watch TV while the lasagna finishes baking, and it’s now that Minghao realizes it’s definitely too hot to keep his scarf on. Even though he keeps a good foot of distance between himself and Jeonghan, his whole body feels stuffy, like he’s been folded up and shut in the oven right next to the lasagna. He thinks about taking the scarf off, but Jeonghan is way too close for it to be safe, and he can’t give up so early at the risk of looking like a total punk.

The show ends, and Minghao notices that he hadn’t even paid enough attention to comprehend what it was. While the next block starts, Jeonghan shifts beside him. Every movement is accompanied by a deafening rustle of fabric, and his brain screams between his ears. Jeonghan finally stops fidgeting, and Minghao can’t even be relieved. He’s closer than before now, and the scent of his cologne hits Minghao out of nowhere. It’s on everything, and it burns in Minghao’s chest.

“Say,” Jeonghan says, and his hand floats over to Minghao’s knee, but the beep of the oven interrupts him before it makes contact. “Ah.” His eyes are unrelenting on Minghao’s. His grin is almost invisible. “Perfect timing.”

While they eat, Minghao tries to figure out whether it’s more conspicuous to avoid all eye contact or to keep his eyes glued to Jeonghan’s, though he knows option one is all that’s really available to him right now. Every time he catches a glimpse of Jeonghan’s gaze locked on him, his heartrate increases by ten percent, and he’s not sure his body will be able to support him too much longer.

“How is it?” Jeonghan asks, and the sound of his voice sends Minghao into a coughing fit.

“Fine,” he manages, hitting himself in the chest with a fist. “I mean, it’s good.”

He dares to meet Jeonghan’s gaze and regrets it instantly. Something about the lighting in here is crazy. Jeonghan looks so soft in such a threatening way, and the warmth of his gaze is sending Minghao mixed signals about why he’s supposed to be terrified. Minghao also notices that Jeonghan’s plate is cleared already, and he realizes he forgot to watch to see if he actually took a bite, kicks himself mentally. It’s all because of the nerves. The stupid nerves!

He’s not supposed to be this nervous. The main agenda here is proving his theory, not accidentally falling prey to some weird sort of smoothness Jeonghan’s been keeping up his sleeves. Yet he’s losing his grip on what sort of evidence helps his cause or not. Jeonghan pushes his sleeves up, and Minghao fixates on his arms so hard he can’t tell if it even matters.

“Are you not hungry?” Jeonghan asks, nodding to Minghao’s plate, where nearly half a slice of lasagna sits untouched. Minghao shrugs.

“Just don’t have much appetite.”

“If you don’t like Italian, you should have said so.”

“That’s not it.”

“Is it not?” Jeonghan grins, just a little, leans on his elbows. His eyelids droop just enough to make Minghao feel like bolting. “Should we just watch a movie?”

“Yeah.” Minghao’s voice cracks, and he knows Jeonghan hears it, and he wants to die. “That’s fine.”

The movie is one Jeonghan says he really likes, some romcom from the 80’s starring Goldie Hawn. Minghao’s never seen it, and he could hardly say he’s seeing it now. Every few moments, he sees Jeonghan scoot closer in his periphery, and it exacerbates the fever hugging his body from every angle. He’s sweating under the scarf, and he’s dying to take it off, but the knowledge that that’s exactly what Jeonghan wants him to do is the one thing keeping him from buckling.

“You seem uncomfortable,” Jeonghan whispers halfway through the movie. By now, his shoulder bumps up against Minghao’s, head leans close on the side. A stray strand of his hair brushes Minghao’s cheek at a billion degrees.

“I’m not,” Minghao says through gritted teeth.

“Are you sure you’re not too hot?”

“Yup,” Minghao says, but the breath he sends it out on is too tight to be fooling anyone.

Without warning, one of Jeonghan’s hands is on his neck, freezing cold, slipping beneath the safety net he was stupid enough to think could keep him safe from anything. A shiver runs through his whole body, bounces back to come through the other way. Jeonghan sighs, doesn’t move his hand. Of course he doesn’t.

“You’re burning up,” he whispers.

“No, I’m not.” Minghao doesn’t know why he bothers trying to lie, like Jeonghan doesn’t have nerve endings, like he doesn’t have his fingertips on the truth right now.

“I don’t know what your deal is,” Jeonghan says, “but you have to take this off. For your sake.” He closes his fist around the fabric and starts to tug it away. Minghao’s hand is wrapped around his wrist before he’s moved it an inch.

“I’ll take it off myself,” he says, and he chances a sideways look at Jeonghan when he does.

Jeonghan’s eyebrows are raised, mouth toys with just the faintest suggestion of a smile. He releases his hold on the scarf and watches Minghao take it off instead, hand still hovering just inches away.

The relief is instant, or would be if Jeonghan were a few feet further back. Minghao goes from a boil to a simmer, which he guesses is an improvement, but not enough to justify the exposure of his neck, which Jeonghan has been concerned enough with that it almost confirms the vampire theory on its own. With his layer of safety gone, he’s even more acutely aware of every motion Jeonghan makes and whether he’s coming closer, whether his mouth is anywhere close to the danger zone. He breathes out, and Minghao feels it slip through his skin like needles. He jumps, just a little, but enough for Jeonghan to notice.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Minghao tries to avoid meeting Jeonghan’s eyes, but there’s some sort of magnetic pull that forces him to do it anyway. Probably vampire magic. His jaw clenches when he sees the way Jeonghan smiles, the way his eyes travel a lazy little path over Minghao’s freshly-exposed skin. “Ah, I get it,” he says.

“Get what?” Very far in the back of his mind, Minghao feels the urge to move away, but it takes too long to reach the action part of his brain, and Jeonghan is a few inches closer in a blink.

“Your neck is sensitive, huh?” he asks, low, almost whispering. Minghao feels hot all over again.

“No.”

“You sure about that?”

Jeonghan’s hand is still freezing as ever when it curls around behind Minghao’s neck, palm pressed flushed against the skin, fingers spidering around beneath his ear. Minghao shivers.

“I’m sure.”

“Alright,” Jeonghan says, and he leaves his hand exactly where it is, arm curved behind Minghao’s back on the couch, pressing an imprint in between the notches of his spine. He faces the movie again, watches it with a slim smile. Every now and again, his thumb taps at the side of Minghao’s neck and jolts him another shade closer to cherry.

“Could you please,” he chokes, “get your hand off my neck?”

There is something deeply evil about the way Jeonghan smiles, but he draws his hand back. Minghao is almost ready to relax when he notices Jeonghan is looking at him still, chin propped up on his palm, light hanging in rings around his eyes. Minghao breathes out slowly. What was he thinking, right? Relax? As if. When it’s ten billion degrees in here and the scent of Jeonghan’s cologne is so thick he can’t remember what the regular air tastes like anymore. He blinks at Jeonghan, adjusts himself on the couch.

“What?”

“I would love to kiss you,” Jeonghan says. He’s moving closer without another word, until his nose is only an inch or two shy from butting up against Minghao’s. His eyelashes cast too-long shadows on the pale of his cheeks.

“Excuse me?” Minghao whispers.

“You heard what I said.”

“Why would…” Minghao gulps. Quite suddenly, he becomes aware of the vibration of every single atom in the universe around them right now. “Why would you say that?”

Jeonghan’s laughter ghosts over Minghao’s chin. “I’m trying to tell the truth more,” he says. Everything about him is suffocating. He tilts his face down in the slightest way, and his eyes look like they’re drowning. “And you like me, don’t you?” he asks, voice so low it blends into the movement of the earth, so small it melts right into Minghao’s skin and burns underneath the apples of his cheeks.

Minghao’s eyes squeeze shut, the same reflex as when he sees the sun through the window right after waking up. “Yes,” he hears himself breathe, throat dry. “Yeah. I do.” His eyes snap open. He wants to clap his hands over his stupid idiot mouth, but Jeonghan has already taken care of it for him in the absolute worst way.

In the frenzy of lava worming through his body and Jeonghan’s freezing hands somewhere around his waist and the lukewarm middle ground of Jeonghan’s lips right at the spot he doesn’t need them to be, Minghao gets sidetracked and forgets to gather valuable information. Does he taste like blood? Or metal? Or anything? It’s too late by the time he thinks to think about it. Jeonghan has moved away from Minghao’s mouth, down the side of his chin to a spot on his neck that’s kept him awake for weeks now. He’s never felt more like his entire body was on fire.

“Stop. Stop!” He gasps and shoves his hands into Jeonghan’s chest, hard with the weight of the panic flooding through him. For a few seconds, he sits heaving, eyes on Jeonghan’s. They’re wide yet not, cheeks only slightly flushed, his mouth trembling at a halfway point between two invisible ends. Minghao’s body is twisting into knots. “I need to leave,” he whispers, hand fluttering to the spot of skin that’s most alive with white heat. “Thanks for dinner.”

If Jeonghan says anything while Minghao is hurrying out, he doesn’t hear it. He’s out the door before he sees where his feet are going, shoes still untied in his hand when he climbs into his car. It’s only once he’s pulling into the lot of his own apartment that he realizes he left his scarf.

Wonwoo flattens his lips into a line while he drags a fry through the dollop of ketchup on his plate. “I hate to totally bust your deranged conspiracy theory,” he begins, with the distinct air of someone who does not actually hate what they say they hate to do, “but if you had lasagna, there is like a 100% chance there was garlic in it, which kind of fucks your whole shit.” He bites the fry and smiles. “Yeah?”

Minghao groans. “Okay, maybe, but you’re focusing way too much on the smallest thing.”

“I think that is the exact description of what you’ve been doing for months,” Wonwoo says, picking up another fry. “I’m focusing on the part that makes the most sense, which is you being wrong.” He bites it, a drop of ketchup sticking to his lower lip. “Besides, you should be happy. Now you can be horny in peace.”

“That’s totally not the issue.”

“I think it’s a big part of the issue.” Wonwoo yawns, stretches his arms, wiggles his fingers at the ceiling. “We both know you’re just scared to admit how bad you want to take him to the bone zone.” Minghao coughs. “If he’s guilty of killing or eating people or whatever, that is a very convenient excuse to pretend you don’t like him.”

“Do you even hear yourself right now?” Minghao asks. He forces his palm down over the knuckles of his opposite fist, but they won’t crack. “You sound like a lunatic.”

“A lunatic who’s right.” Wonwoo grins. “I majored in psychology, Minghao. I know the brain.” He aims a finger at Minghao’s chest and lowers his thumb to fire a shot. “You can deny all you want, but I’m very much onto your fear of attachment.”

Minghao presses his hands over his eyes until all the red he sees fades into black. “Jesus. Whatever.” He takes a deep breath and steels himself. It isn’t enough to prevent the stab of regret when he sees Wonwoo’s shitty sneer again. “I knew I shouldn’t have talked to you about this.”

“Wow, so ungrateful. After all I’ve done for you.”

“You’re such a dumbass,” Minghao says. “I hate you. You know that?”

“Sure,” Wonwoo says with a sigh. “You hate me, and you don’t have the hots for Jeonghan, and I drive a Lambo, and Soonyoung is German.” He stretches his arms out behind him and laces his fingers together. “Is that what you want to hear?”

“Okay.” Minghao slams his palms against the tabletop and stands. “I’m leaving.”

“Hey, one more thing.” Wonwoo lays his palm on the back of Minghao’s hand, presses down hard on the knuckles. “You should call Jeonghan.”

Minghao frowns and shakes Wonwoo’s grip away. “And why should I?”

“I don’t know,” Wonwoo says, turning his hand around in the air like he’s hoping to grab hold of something, “maybe because he made dinner for you and then you dipped mid-mack and now it’s been a week and you haven’t said anything to him.” His hand stills, eyebrows raise. “So you’re kinda being the asshole here, don’t you think?”

Minghao opens his mouth while he thinks up something to say, but after a few seconds of letting his jaw hang open, turns and walks off. Behind him, Wonwoo calls something sweet and insincere, and Minghao hunches his shoulders and walks faster. Bastard.

He keeps up a brisk pace until he gets to his car, then slips into the driver’s seat, slams the door, and watches his breath turn to fog on the windshield. Maybe it’s true that he hasn’t called, but it’s not like he has any obligation. Jeonghan’s the one who kills and eats people. There’s no exception just because he said he likes Minghao and invited him over. Or because he made dinner. Or because they kissed a little. And definitely not because Minghao wants to be drawn and quartered just thinking about the feel of Jeonghan’s lips on the side of his neck. A spot at the top of Minghao’s breath cloud condenses into a drop and starts to slide down, splitting the foggy patch into uneven halves. He takes out his phone.

For a long few seconds, he lets his thumb linger over the call button on Jeonghan’s contact, but he can’t find the nerve to push it. Something about calling seems so wrong, like it’s not quite enough. Not that he even wants to listen to Wonwoo’s bullshit. He shouldn’t call because he doesn’t need to, Minghao tries to tell himself, except he knows better. More precisely, he knows himself better than that, knows that the tightness in his chest when he thinks about Jeonghan cannot be entirely vampiric in nature. God, does he hate when Wonwoo is right. He just hates Wonwoo in general.

Minghao sits there for another long while watching the windshield grow cloudier. Here and there, more condensed droplets start to run down through the expanse of mist, breaking it into chunks. In the cold of the car, his fingers start to go numb around his phone, and when he can’t feel them anymore, he turns the key in the ignition. With the hum of the engine as background music, he waits until the fog on the window melts away, then shifts into reverse.

Few times in his life has Minghao been as twisted with nerves as he is when he stands outside Jeonghan’s apartment door twenty minutes later—excluding, of course, the last time he was here. It’s not until he has his fist poised against the wood and ready to knock that he thinks maybe he should have called after all. There’s a chance Jeonghan might not even be here, and Minghao isn’t sure whether it would be better or worse to come face-to-face with one of his roommates. He hesitates another moment, then steels himself and knocks. The sound of it echoes forever around him.

Not much time passes between Minghao knocking and the door swinging open, and he barely remembers to prepare himself mentally to face whomever appears from behind the door. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Jeonghan is the one to open it. He’s bundled up again in a huge sweater with a distractingly wide-cut neck, fabric draped in thick folds over his shoulders while a large patch of his chest remains exposed to the biting air. Minghao gulps. He opens his mouth to say something, but realizes in that moment that he hasn’t thought of what to say yet. Rookie mistake. Somehow, the way Jeonghan looks at him is reviving that feeling he might shit himself.

“Well,” Jeonghan says, eyes fading from half-surprise to something Minghao can’t place at all, lips mostly unsmiling, “I guess you’re here because your neck’s been getting lonely?”

“Huh?” Minghao sputters.

Jeonghan blinks slowly, like he’s trying not to roll his eyes. Somehow, his irises reflect too much light. Minghao can hardly look at them. “Your scarf,” Jeonghan says. “You left it here.”

“Oh,” Minghao says, “yeah.” He sticks his hands in his pockets to avoid thinking about how much his palms are starting to clam up.

“I’ll go get it for you,” Jeonghan says, turning around. The second he takes a step further inside, Minghao sees his own hand shoot out to grab his wrist. Jeonghan glances at the hand on his wrist, then up to Minghao, but for a while, all Minghao can do is open and close his mouth uselessly.

“Uh,” he finally manages, “actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Is that right?” The slight quirk of a smile creeps into the corners of his mouth. “Care to tell me what it is?”

“Can I come inside?”

“Are you sure you want to?” Now there’s something a little fiery in Jeonghan’s gaze. He turns around fully to face Minghao, steps up to him until their noses nearly bump against each other. “How do I know you won’t just leave without warning and ghost me for a week again?” When he says it, he tilts his head to the side, eyes hard on Minghao’s. “What should I do then? Wait around until you come back knocking?”

“I’m sorry about that,” Minghao breathes. Jeonghan squints.

“Are you really?”

“Can I please come in?”

They stay where they are for what feels like years, Jeonghan’s cool breath drawing fever everywhere it passes over Minghao’s skin. Jeonghan’s gaze is hard to meet, yet Minghao can’t look away either, so he’s stuck staring back from just inches away, breath held firm in his lungs. When Jeonghan backs up again, he finally lets himself exhale. It burns on the way out.

“Fine,” Jeonghan says, turning around and shaking his wrist free. “Shut the door behind you.”

Jeonghan’s bedroom is more normal than Minghao expected—half-filled bookshelves, a pile of unfolded shirts resting on a chair, an unmade bed. No coffin, no bloodstains, no victims. All that really sticks out is a space heater glowing red in the corner, which is probably the reason it’s even more boiling hot in here than in the rest of the apartment. Minghao is burning up from the second he walks in, but there’s nothing he can take off to relieve it. Nothing he should take off, at least.

“Have a seat,” Jeonghan says, sitting on the bed and folding his legs up underneath him. He watches Minghao with hawkish intensity while he sits down a foot away. If Minghao weren’t already sweating from the baseline heat of the room, the look in Jeonghan’s eyes would definitely get him there. Jeonghan waits a few beats of silence before saying, “Alright. Talk.”

Minghao closes his eyes to try to gather something up that won’t make him sound like an idiot and a jackass, but it’s hard when he feels like his spine is melting inside him, when Jeonghan’s stare is burning holes right through his core. When he opens his eyes again, everything is fuzzy, and his brain still hasn’t gotten anywhere worthwhile. He sighs.

“Well,” he begins, “I’m really sorry for, like, leaving. I didn’t mean to not say anything.” Silence sits around them again like rocks.

“Is that all?” Jeonghan asks, leaning forward. “You couldn’t say that at the door?”

“Well, that’s not all,” Minghao says. His throat aches like he’s just swallowed a mouthful of magma. Jeonghan raises an eyebrow.

“Are you gonna tell me why, then?” he says. “Or do I have to drag it out of you?” There’s something distinctly fragile in his voice that Minghao is morbidly terrified of confronting.

“I was just,” Minghao says, voice soft, wetting his lips, “a little scared.” Jeonghan hums in place of saying anything, an invitation for Minghao to go on, but there’s nowhere to continue from here. He can’t figure out anything else to say that doesn’t make him sound like an idiot who refuses to process his own emotions. Even if that’s exactly what he is, he doesn’t want to tell Jeonghan about it. Not that he hasn’t already figured it out.

“So you were scared,” Jeonghan muses after a while, creeping ever closer. His palm flattens against the unkempt duvet right beside Minghao’s thigh. It’s so hot in here. “Of what? Me?”

“Not just you,” Minghao mumbles, “but yeah. Also you.” His own vagueness is so frustrating. Minghao wants to slam his head into the window and wake up in a universe where this isn’t happening.

“So tell me what else,” Jeonghan supplies. It’s at this moment that Minghao catches a whiff of his cologne again and notices it really is everywhere, emanating from every nook of the room. He’s getting dizzy.

“I don’t know what else,” he says.

“How can you not know?” Jeonghan is even closer now, and he’s shining like moonlight. His hair looks soft, and Minghao refuses to acknowledge that he wants to touch it. He won’t look at the bare skin of Jeonghan’s chest, even in his periphery. He won’t, god damn it. He can’t afford to. “You like me.” Minghao’s breath catches, heart takes a short break from beating before picking up the pace tenfold. “Didn’t you say that?”

“Yeah. I said that.”

“So, don’t you?”

The small waver in his voice is what makes Minghao look at him again, and he regrets it as soon as he does. Everything about Jeonghan is so overwhelming. His eyes, the curve of his lips, the arch of his neck. Minghao knows how cold to the touch Jeonghan is, always has been, but he still feels his skin burning off and disintegrating somewhere in the minimal distance between them. It takes all his willpower to keep his hands still, to open his mouth. He hates saying things.

“I do,” he whispers, absolutely tiny. “A lot.”

“Then what are you scared of?”

Minghao’s breath slides shaky through his teeth, and he wishes more than anything he could punch Wonwoo in the face twice right now. Once for being annoying, and once for being right. “That’s what I’m scared of.”

“What the hell?” A chuckle sifts through Jeonghan’s lips, dusts hot over Minghao’s neck. “How frustrating.” Then he grabs Minghao’s collar and pulls their faces close together. There is nowhere for Minghao to look that isn’t Jeonghan. “I’m not just playing around here,” he whispers, unnervingly close to Minghao’s lips. “I’m serious about you.”

“Okay,” Minghao breathes. His head is light. “I believe you.”

“Please,” Jeonghan mutters, “don’t run away this time.” Then he pulls Minghao forward by the shirt and kisses him again.

Everything about this is terrifying. Minghao can feel himself drowning in slow motion, every individual movement of Jeonghan’s hands as they travel from his collar to his neck, cheeks to chest, thighs, back. There’s something about the flavor of his lips that Minghao can’t figure out, something that doesn’t point to vampire but also doesn’t point to human. Jeonghan pushes Minghao gently to his back against the rumpled covers, and Minghao feels like he is sinking and floating at the same time. Despite the sense of terror he can’t shake, he doesn’t let himself tense up. Instead, he raises his hands to Jeonghan’s waist and leans into him.

Maybe it’s only scary because giving a shit means consequences, and Minghao hates those more than anything. When you don’t care about anything, nothing that happens can hurt you. Caring is basically just begging for pain. Having feelings for somebody is just asking for them to destroy you. In the same second he pictures spending time with Jeonghan, he has to picture Jeonghan getting tired of him, breaking things off, fading into the distance. He’d rather have all the blood drained from his body.

Jeonghan wanders down to start kissing his neck, that familiar spot, and Minghao sighs into the stars. He really hates being wrong. Almost as much as he hates still thinking about it when he’s making out with someone, when that someone is Jeonghan. The feel of Jeonghan’s lips nearing his collarbone makes Minghao feel like his entire body is made of silly putty.

“You’re not a vampire, are you?” he blurts, immediately squeezing his eyes shut in shame. All action comes to a complete halt when Jeonghan leans back to look him over. There’s a vague hint of a smile hovering on his mouth.

“What makes you ask that?” he says, tone playful.

“A lot of things,” Minghao says. He doesn’t feel like listing out all the evidence. Not when Jeonghan is looking at him like that.

“Do you want me to be?” His voice makes Minghao’s spine tingle. One of his hands swipes over that spot on Minghao’s neck that’s only grown more sensitive in the past few months, and his grin is suffocating.

“Just answer the question.”

Jeonghan exhales slowly and droops his head back down to lay wet kisses along Minghao’s jaw. “Trust me,” he says, words humming through Minghao’s skin and turning him to jelly, “if I wanted to suck your blood, I would have done it already.” Minghao opens his mouth to speak, but Jeonghan cuts him off with a kiss, and then another, and then some more. He closes his eyes and gives up.

When Minghao returns to his car later, it’s already long since the sunset, dark and absolutely freezing. His body still feels alive with electricity when Jeonghan bids him goodnight at the door, whispers in his ear to call him, lets his fingertips linger a few moments too long near the collar of Minghao’s shirt. He knows all his skin is still a flaming shade of strawberry even in the late evening chill, but he has trouble caring. With every step, he feels less and less like his feet are touching the ground. He watches the silhouette of Jeonghan waving goodbye from the doorway as he pulls away and starts turning down empty roads.

It is when he comes to a stop at the first red light of his drive home that he is hit with full truck-like force by two alarming realizations. The first is that he has once again left Jeonghan’s place without his favorite scarf, which is annoying. The second, though, is much more pressing and sets his BPM on an upward spiral in an instant. As he thinks back to asking Jeonghan whether he is in fact a vampire, he realizes that Jeonghan never actually said no. The more he thinks about it, the more it sounds like he was saying yes.

For a long time after the light turns green, Minghao sits there without going, wondering whether it’s still something worth being scared about. What really terrifies him is that he, in the present day, is probably fully guilty of lusting over a vampire, and what terrifies him even more than that is that he can’t find it in himself to mind.

**Author's Note:**

> is this bad? yes. please cut me some slack. i'm still trying to remember how to write. anyway i started this au a while ago after jeonghan posted some particularly vampy looking pics, and here as i'm about to wrap it up he posts even MORE vampy pics just for good measure. his mind is incredible. anyway, thanks so much for reading, and i really hope you enjoyed!! see you around


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